PHILOSOPHIC ANTS 179 



The Wise Ants were summoned : they were ordered 

 by the Queen to investigate the matter ; and so, after 

 consultation, decided to apply the test of experiment. 

 Several of their number, at stated intervals through- 

 out the year, stayed in and went out on alternate 

 days, performing identical tasks on the two occasions. 

 The task was the repeated recitation of the most 

 efficacious of the myrmecine sacred formulae. 



The rough-and-ready calculations of the workers 

 were speedily corroborated ' Great is God, and we 

 are the people of God ' could be recited out-of-doors 

 some twenty thousand times a day in summer, less 

 than four thousand times in winter ; while the corre- 

 sponding indoor figures were about fifteen thousand 

 and six thousand. 



There was the fact : now for the explanation. 

 After many conclaves, a most ingenious hypothesis 

 was put forward, which found universal credence. 

 Let me give it an elegant and logical form. 



(i) It was well known — indeed self-evident — that 

 the Ant race was the offspring and special 

 care of the Power who made and ruled 

 the universe, 

 (i.i) Therefore a great deal of the virtue and 

 essence of that Power inhered in the race 

 of Ants. Ants, indeed, were made in 

 the image of God. 

 (1.2) It was, alas, common knowledge that this 

 Power, although Omnipotent and Omni- 



